Jets’ 2026 draft is all about aiding Aaron Glenn’s culture shift

The newest Jets can say something no one on last year’s team could say — they went to the playoffs after the 2025 season.

David Bailey, Kenyon Sadiq, Omar Cooper and D’Angelo Ponds all went to the College Football Playoff last season with Texas Tech, Oregon and Indiana, respectively. In fact, they played each other, with Oregon beating Texas Tech and Bailey and then losing to Cooper’s and Ponds’ Indiana team, which went on to win the national championship.

Jets draft picks have talked about ending the team’s losing ways for the last decade, but the Jets are hoping the winning pedigree of the players they drafted Thursday and Friday might actually work this time and end the team’s 15-year playoff drought and 10-year streak of losing seasons.

“Here’s what also is critical about those there players is they come from winning programs, also,” Jets coach Aaron Glenn said after the first round Thursday. “So, when you get the chance to bring that into your locker room, man, it speaks volumes. I mean Omar, and we all seen him against Penn State when he made that game-winning catch. Man, you saw the things that Bailey did as far as the forced fumbles and things like that. You saw Sadiq and his [run after catch], man. All of those guys have done something within their career that either won the game, they take over a game, but they come from winning programs and that was huge to be able to get guys like that.”

As Glenn tries to flip the Jets’ culture from a losing one to a winning one, he is banking on these four players being a key part of that. Cooper and Ponds were part of the Hoosiers going from perennial losers to a playoff team in 2024 and then national champions last year.

Cooper said he thinks he can bring some of what worked at Indiana to Florham Park.

“I mean, I would just say the mindset, the mindset that was instilled into me and then just trying to bring others along,” Cooper said. “And also, just creating a relationship with everybody in the locker room. I felt like that kind of helped us be successful because we were out there playing for each other as well.”

Bailey spent three years at Stanford before transferring to Texas Tech last year. The Red Raiders went from also-rans to a playoff team in Bailey’s one year there.

“Yeah, 100 percent, man,” Bailey said when asked if he can bring the lessons learned from Tech with him to the NFL. “The reason that we had the success we had at Tech was a lot more than me, it’s just a whole bunch of things. It was [coach Joey] McGuire and it was the staff and it was the alumni and the players that we acquired. But I learned from myself, like, at least what’s important for success is creating a great, effective routine, and staying consistent to that routine, so I’m looking to carry on the same thing in my pro career. Just creating an even better routine to help me become a better player.”

The Jets have tried this avenue before both in free agency and the draft. Jamal Adams talked about turning the Jets around in 2017 after he was drafted from LSU. The team signed C.J. Mosley from the Ravens in 2019 with the idea he could bring some of the Baltimore culture with him.

It has not worked so far, but maybe this trio can change the Jets’ mojo.

“I think it’s something that I’ve talked about before is, when you have targets, you identify guys you like, you love, you go get them,” Glenn said. “And that’s exactly what we did [Thursday]. And any time you can bring guys with a winning background on your team, that only helps the morale of your team. So, there’s a lot of things that goes into that, but man to get three first-round picks and the caliber guys that we got, the personality, the mentality, the football character, all those things are huge, bringing those guys on our team.”